Maschine 3 stems control

stee1962

I just installed Maschine 3, and I’m having trouble controlling stems I’ve separated from a track. If I click on a stem (or the original track), it will begin playing, but it will not stop. It doesn’t respond to the space bar key command as a start/stop control, and there’s no obvious play/stop buttons. Clicking the other stems (or the original track) will start those playing as well, all overlapping each other.
Additionally, I’m not getting sounds in MIDI mode on my MK3. Pad mode works fine, but MIDI doesn't. Wondering if I have something configured incorrectly? Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

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Uwe303

Hello,

do you mean you can´t play a sound from your keyboard, you have to activate midi port 1 as input, and deactivate the daw port on in and output.

Stems are loaded in the sampler module after creating them, so it depends a bit on how you want to use the stems. First you can delete or mute the original file, then go to every stem and set the envelope to adsr on all 4 stems + set polyphony to 1 if you want that. Then playing a note will start the stem and releasing the note will stop the stem - in this case you may also want to edit/cut the stems.

Or you set all 4 stems from sampler to audio module, then the stems play "normal" like a audio track in a daw. And you can of course also edit the stems to your liking. Here a picture of stems in an audio module playing "normal" as the whole song would without further editing, a starting point if you will.

crating stems is maybe not he best thing to start with, i would recommend you practice and learn maschine first to get your head around all the functionality, so you have at least a basic understanding.

Olivier57

Hello,

Videos about stems. 😉

stee1962

Thanks, Uwe and Oliver57
I did watch a couple of videos about stems before posting here, but the results I was getting when following step-by-step weren’t what I was seeing. I can’t stop playing the stems or the imported song once they start. If I re-click the track, it begins playing again, over the top of what's already playing on that track. Incidentally, when I load a kit I am able to control playback with the space bar as expected.

The problem seems like it may have less to do with stems and more to do with the way Maschine 3 is configured by default. I tried to disable the Komplete Kontrol DAW input and output, but when I re-open the settings, Maschine has turned it back on. So something is forcing it on. I’m connected to a Maschine MK3 Mikro and an S49 MK2, if that matters. I agree I have a lot to learn about Maschine, and I will get to that, but in the meantime I’d like to make sure I have everything configured correctly for my system. I’m kind of a MIDI dummy, so it’s hard for me to troubleshoot. Thanks again for your time!

stee1962

P.S.
I’m also not getting MIDI mode to work on my Mikro in either Maschine 2 or 3. I may have screwed up something in the Controller Editor…? Right now I have the Mackie template selected. Sorry you guys, I’m a mess. : |

LostInFoundation

If your goal is just to stop the playback of a sample that continues playing after the track is stopped and not setting up how it responds at your “commands” as Uwe303 suggested (One Shot/ADSR, Polyphony,…), you can hit Shift + Mute on the controller and it will stop any ongoing audio.

But I suggest you to at least try what Uwe303 suggested you. Setting up how samples behave when they are played is quite fundamental for being able to work with a sampler.

Btw: Komplete Kontrol DAW port being enabled or not has nothing to do with the behaviour you are trying to control

Olivier57

Hello,

I don't quite understand your approach and what you want to do.

To use Mikro MK3 in MIDI mode:

Press SHIFT+the recent Projects button
Go to preferences, under MIDI input check the Maschine Mikro MK3 box
Use the "Controller Editor" to configure your Mikro MK3 to your liking.

However, I don't see the connection between using Stems and MIDI mode.

LostInFoundation explains how to use stems for reading, you can also watch this video

Uwe303

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/246642#Comment_246642

midi mode is a different thing, you don´t need with maschine, you need midi mode to control a daw or other instruments within a daw.

6xes

hi Stee1962

i'm just curious about your long term direction albeit goal… with what you are setting out to achieve.

like i mean stems is likely only a small part of your workflow…

and in all honesty… there are better ways to work with stems or even creating them or using them in realtime, to "loop record" only the parts that you want quickly& inserting them into maschine, bypassing the need for any pre-processing of stems within maschine

and going by the midi controllers you are utilising(shown in the pictures), you seem very invested in the Maschine hardware!!

its great you are familiar with controller editor, as the maschine hardware controllers in my view are great in this respect!!

anyway coming back to your long/short term goal.. where does the stems aspect fit into your goal??

stee1962

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. I’m sorry I was asking multiple, albeit related, questions. Makes it more difficult to answer or understand what I’m trying to do. I think I’ve figured it out by watching the official NI “Remix tracks with stem separation” video very closely.

By default, the Sound was set to Sampler, not Audio. So I wasn’t seeing any stem wave forms and regular controls like my spacebar and muting channels weren’t working. Although I WAS able to stop playback in Sampler mode by pressing Shift-Mute on my Machine Mikro (thanks, LostInFoundation!).

Once I set Sound to Audio, I could see the waveforms (see screenshots) and - hallelujah - I was able to control the tracks as expected. Apologies if this was an obvious “well, duh” fix. I feel like I’m pretty well versed in Maschine for the narrow window of things I use it for, but this setting escaped me.
Again, thanks for the inputs!

Doesn’t work:

Screenshot 2025-11-06 at 11.27.15 AM.png

Does work!:

Screenshot 2025-11-06 at 11.43.16 AM.png

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